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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? During another Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, traditionally viewed as a crucial congressional authority, has turned into a unclear right of the presidential office in the time since September 11; the president, in the past few months, has claimed even more of that control for his administration, authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the power to appropriate government money has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to redirect the money to other uses. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all legislation must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the government just ceases operations. That is, large sections of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the federal government has been shut down all month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the executive branch keeps on humming along.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who has a majority in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

How ‘screw Trump’ rhetoric could help the state of California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote next month, has captured the political imagination of liberals nationwide. In part, it is a delayed response to trends occurring in other states: Republican-controlled states have long adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, the Empire State and Washington draw their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their party is at a disadvantage. The California measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-term redrawing of maps that recently passed in Texas, which installed maps that will give the GOP an additional five seats in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; comparable boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in Virginia are also following the state’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The state measure seems probable to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of authority and seek methods to check his worst tendencies. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on strictly principled pro-democracy grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a way that the outcome of the election is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it implies, inevitably, that the influence of opposing voices is muted, and that the procedure of debate, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a healthy political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial critique, that Prop 50 will provoke conservatives to redraw their own maps in response, does not hold up as a logical point: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to redraw boundaries that secure permanent positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, expressing not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of melancholic desire for a distinct nation than the one that the United States has become. It is true that in a better world – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, desire and hope for – Prop 50 would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to select their voters, rather than the reverse; it is negative that elections are made uncontested. That these measures have grown necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of Trump’s power and reduce the amount of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from something more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only after the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in reality have legislative, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and California’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a institution with the power to probe the president, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US columnist